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From: John Lerch <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] TMRCA problem #4: the speech gene
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:48:34 -0700


Except most (all?) the fins that mammals reacquired are structurally, genetically different from the fins the fish/amphibians had. The ??Fox2 gene is the same; it works the same; it's the same in every meaningful way. So nature's canniness is irrelevant.
Raymond W wrote
It is quite possible the ??Fox2 gene which created speech in
humans was independently also created in Neanderthals. Nature has a canny way of
re-using certain templates across species. There are many cases in nature where
a certain development occurred on different species at different times.

The first thing that pops into my head (at this moment) is many sea mammals
re-acquired fins in order to better navigate the oceans.

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